


All it takes

by stelleappese



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fluffy as hell, M/M, a little tiny bit of angst, no really utter unforgivable fluff, sort of begins as underage but nothing really happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 15:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelleappese/pseuds/stelleappese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben's mother is never at home. His neighbor politely accepts to keep an eye on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All it takes

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't sleep, last night, and I was feeling particularly blue and sort of lovesick, so I wrote this. I have no excuse for the amount of sugar in this.

Peter hears Ben's footsteps since he starts walking down the stairs. Soft, velvety little thuds of naked feet against moquette. He stops as he approaches the door to the living room, slows down. Peter only feels his presence by the swishing of his too-big sweatpants. He places his hands over Peter's eyes, and for some long, blessed, seconds, Peter only exists in an incandescent-red world behind Ben's hands. He inhales Ben's scent, a mix of honey-and-milk shampoo and aftershave, and lets his head rest against his shoulder.  
Ben doesn't say anything. He just brushes his lips -thin lips, sharp and burning hot- against Peter's neck. He pushes a little kiss, a little moan, against his jugular; brushes his nose against Peter's jaw. And Peter feels like the delicate touch of Ben's lips can almost be enough to break him.

 

The first time they meet, Ben is particularly gloomy, and of course Pete doesn't yet know why. He opens the door to find Donna, his neighbor, with a lanky kid beside her. He's too pale to have spent much time around there, Peter can see in his thoughtful eyes he's miles and miles away.  
This is my son, says Donna, and could you please watch him for a while, because she's got some urgent errand to run, she says.  
Ben doesn't even look at him. His jaw is tightly clutched, and his hands are clenched into fists.  
Peter tells him to make himself comfortable, and Ben just curls up in a corner of the couch. He doesn't speak at all, that first time.

 

He starts speaking to him almost two months later, one night, when Peter is coming home from the corner shop with a bag of snacks and a boring, silent night ahead of him. Ben is slouching against somebody -Chip Dawson, son of Amelia and Richard, lives down the road-, his lips curled mischievously, his lashes trembling lightly, his hands smoothly running against Chip's chest. But his eyes look remote and there's something too stiff about his smile, so Peter shoos Chip away and takes Ben home.  
His Dad -he calls him _Papa_ , but with an 'r' at the end- divorced his Mom -Mum, Peter wonders why she's not _Mama_ , or _Mamar_ \- to marry another woman, he says. Mum is never home. He hates this place, he says, it feels like an episode of Twilight Zone. For examples, and here he gets particularly concerned, just this morning he went to buy a Mars Bar and they gave him something absolutely different, he says, like, he has no idea how on earth anybody could ever think that shit -that _shite_ \- had anything to do with a Mars Bar.  
Peter nods, understandingly.  
He ditches Ben on the couch and puts on the coffee, but when he steps back in the living room to check on him, Ben is already fast asleep, curled up in a little ball, and looking miserable.

 

After a few days Donna asks Peter if he can keep an eye on Ben, because she needs to be on the East Coast for a few days, and Peter agrees.

On the first day, he just drops by from time to time, and Ben only acknowledges his presence with a low, distracted hum.

On the second day, after lunch, Ben sneaks inside Peter's house from the kitchen door, says a quick hello, and goes to sleep on the couch. He wakes up really late, steals Peter's Jelly Beans, and leaves.

On the third day, at six AM, Ben is drunk again. He rings the bell so hard Peter dreams he's Arthur Dent and somebody's trying to demolish his house. Ben says, with a desperate laugh, that he just got home, and Peter lets him in, he puts on the coffee, then forgets about it and falls asleep next to Ben, on the couch. The rest of the day is spent tending to a really blue Ben and his killer headache.

The fourth day starts with Peter waking up and finding Ben sleeping next to him. Ben tells him, over breakfast -pancakes and eggs, and liters of bitter coffee-, that he came in through the window, and starts humming a Beatles' song as he pokes his food with the fork. He says the walls wanted to eat him. Peter asks if he wants to sleep over for the few following days. Ben nods.

On the fifth day, a Saturday, Ben shuts Peter's alarm off and lets him sleep till late. He cooks him an English breakfast -bacon, eggs, sausages, beans, and mushrooms- and watches cartoons as Peter works.

On the sixth day, Donna comes back. Peter doesn't see Ben all day. He goes shopping, mows the lawn, cleans the house. At around eleven o'clock, Ben serenely walks in his studio, tells him he's sneaked in through the window again, and announces he's going to sleep. In his bed. 

 

Ben has this Deep Purple shirt he's been wearing since he was twelve. He tells Peter his _Papar_ gave it to him. It's incredibly worn out and too short for him, but he wears it anyway. When he's home, in fact, he doesn't wear much else except his vintage -Ben says 'ancient'- t-shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants that look like they were once red -or purple, maybe-, and are now of an indefinite pinkish color. The elastic band on the waist is so consumed it doesn't work at all, they look like they're always on the verge of sliding down Ben's bony hips.

He's got a little gap between his front teeth, and he's terribly self-conscious about it. Peter takes it as a challenge, he always tries to makes him smile, just to take a peek at it. 

Ben's hair is infuriatingly curly, of a warm, honey-like, blond. It keeps falling on his face, and Ben keeps running his hands through it to keep it in place, without any real success. He has really big eyes, and Peter spends a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what color they are, because he's got blue eyes too, but they're nothing like Ben's. He decides, after finding a cornflower tucked between the pages of one of his books -Ben does that, among a lot of other things-, that they're cornflower blue, and when he tells Ben he just shakes his head and smile.

He's got freckles on his shoulders, he realizes one day, while Ben is sunbathing under the window. He's not _properly_ sunbathing, really, he's just reading a comic book right after coming out of the shower, so he has no shirt on. His shoulder-blades are slightly raised, and the sun rains on him, making him look like some sort of ultraterrestrial being. They're really light, the freckles, and suddenly Peter remembers someone telling him freckles are the signs of the kisses of an angel, and wants to kiss them too, every single one of them. Ben looks at him, momentarily distracted from the bright-colored world he's been lost into for a while. He tilts his head and his hair bounces softly. He stretches against the carpet, like a cat, his pale eyes stuck on Peter.

 

One day, as Peter closes his laptop and takes off his glasses, Ben walks inside his studio.  
He asks if he can borrow a book, and Peter nods distractedly and makes to pick up some printouts, but then Ben is on the balls of his feet, stretching up to grab a book, and his pale skin is showing between one of Peter's old t-shirts and a pair of precariously low blue jeans. He can see the dimples of his back, the curve of his spine. Peter stands up, walks towards him in a daze. He stands behind him, his hands on Ben's hips, and Ben freezes. Then Peter is on his knees, his hand pushing up Ben's shirt, his lips ghosting over his vertebrae, pressing a bit more intensely against the end of his spine.  
“Peter...”  
Says Ben. Peter pushes his temple against Ben's smooth skin. He closes his eyes.

 

Then Donna decides to bring Ben along in one of her trips. Ben sneaks inside Peter's house a bit before dawn, he wakes him up kissing his face. And it's all a mess of drowsy, boiling hot kisses, and fingers intertwined, and Ben's thighs press against Peter's hips and he wishes so hard there weren't so many layers between them. Ben bites his underlip as pulls away.  
Don't you dare, he say, don't you dare, but never tells him what.  
Peter digs his free hand between Ben's curls, he tickles the roof of his mouth with his tongue, and Ben moans and sucks on his lips, always so eager, always in a hurry.  
He smiles at Peter as he climbs out of the window, his pointy lips red and glittery, his eyes a bit menacing.

Peter receives five letters, one for each day Ben is away. They're not really letters, not in the proper way. 

The first is an envelope filled with wildflowers and the wrapping of some candies and a tiny little piece of paper with a little heart drawn on it.

The second is a page torn from a magazine. It's an article about the use of color in Van Gogh. Ben has circled some letters with a blue pen. Peter writes them down on a random piece of paper, and reads back: I M I S S Y O U R H A N D S O N M Y H I P S.

The third is a picture of Ben, his hair all ruffled, his eyes sleepy but smiling. On the back it reads, in his upsettingly elegant handwriting: 'Pretend I woke up next to you'.

The fourth turns out to be, upon closer inspection, a page of a Bible, on which is written, in a way more messy fashion, and with a felt-tip pen: 'Love; it will no betray you/dismay or enslave you/it will set you free', and, on the back: 'I just heard this, thought you should know'.

The fifth one Peter doesn't open until late -it's a ribbon, a red one, Ben doesn't elaborate on the matter-, because Ben delivers it by hand, and as soon as the door is closed behind him he cups Peter's face between his hands and kisses him. The letter falls on the floor, just like they do, a little later.

 

They don't make love until Ben turns eighteen, as Autumn approaches. Ben is as eager as always, but Peter slows him down, he's not satisfied until he's mapped his whole body with his tongue, kissed every one of his freckles -on his shoulders and his arms and his nose-.  
Ben holds him so tight, moans and gasps underneath him. His skin is so pale Peter's fingers leave marks over his hips. I wish they would never fade, says Ben, against Peter's throat, I wish I could wear them forever.

After they're done, Peter curls up against Ben's chest. When Ben starts humming he feels the reverberation beneath his hand. He knows the song, Ben always listens to it. It's the one about the tangerines and the moon and the blue-velvet dark. He closes his eyes, feels his eyelashes brush against Ben's skin. Ben kisses the top of Peter's head, still humming softly.

 

Once Autumn has gone from golden and rich to gray and miserable, Donna decides it's time to move again. Ben tells Peter one evening, his eyes as distant as the day they met.  
They sit under the window, curled up against each other, and just hold each others hand.

 

The day Ben leaves Peter watches he and Donna go, sitting on the steps of his house.

 

Ben writes him again, this time a proper letter, telling him how cold and lonely his new house is. It's a messy letter, confused, his writing is clumsy and hurried.

 

On Halloween Eve Peter drives three hundred miles.  
Ben scrambles down the stairs when he hears his voice at the intercom. He's wearing the Deep Purple shirt and the sweatpants, and has no shoes, and it's snowing outside, but he wraps himself around Pete before making him walk in all the same.

Donna is not home. She's in New York, Ben tells him, as he tugs Peter's sweater above his head, won't be back for a few days. Ben sits on Peter's lap, maneuvers a bit to get where he wants, then grabs his wrists and guides Peter's hands against his hips. Peter brushes his thumbs against Ben's skin, and he's so damn cold. He makes a point to warm him up.

He kisses the back of his hand, and his knuckles, then his fingertips, his palm, his pulse. Ben looks at him, his cornflower blue eyes dark and sad.

When Peter leaves, two days later, Ben doesn't let him go for a good fifteen minutes. He keeps kissing him, hugging him tight, right beside Peter's car.  
I'll be waiting for you, he says. Peter holds him a bit harder. 

 

It takes Ben a year to decide that no, he doesn't want to wait.  
One day Peter gets back home from his new job and finds him sitting on the porch, reading an old, precarious-looking paperback of a Bulgakov novel. He just stops dead in the middle of the front yard, staring at him. His features look a bit sharper, his hair shorter. When he notices Peter he abandons his book and walks towards him, stopping in front of him. He looks at him, completely serious, and Peter lets go of his briefcase and closes the distance between them. He hides his face against the hollow between Ben's shoulder and his neck, brushes a hand against the nape of his neck, feeling the little curls under his fingers.

 

Ben lets his hands slip from over Peter's eyes.  
He glances at the album between Peter's hands and grins.  
He remembers that picture, he says, his Grand _papar_ took it, he knows because his Mum always told him about it, and about how Ben had spent the whole day hiding under the tables.  
Peter studies the picture better.  
Ben must be maybe one or two years old, in it. He's a tiny little thing, with huge, curious eyes, a head of fluffy blond hair. He's got his small chubby paw in his mouth, the little upper lips makes a pretty v shape over it. He looks so damn adorable Peter just wants to squish him.  
Sadly, he doesn't have little-Ben to squish, so he decides to cuddle his Ben instead. He's hardly as fluffy as he used to, he's all sharp angles and pointy bones. He kisses the little bump on Ben's nose. Ben smiles, takes the album from Peter's hands, and pushes him down against the couch.

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case you were wondering:
> 
> The song Ben writes on a page from the Bible is Sigh no More by Mumford&Sons (in case you never noticed, I'm slightly obsessed).
> 
> The song he's humming (about tangerines and the moon and the blue-velvet dark) is Stars by The Weepies.
> 
> ;)


End file.
